Confessions of an Aca-Fan

As part of my role as the Chief Advisor to the Annenberg Innovation Lab, I get to run a series of events we like to call, Geek Speaks, which are designed to bring smart conversations about the current state of popular culture to USC's campus. I've joked that these events function as "geek bait" -- that is, the lab has many opportunities for students who are designers, hackers, and entrepreneur to work on projects together, and we use these events, in part, to publicize the Lab to the larger campus community. In the past, for example, we've had conversations with Brian David Johnson and Cory Doctorow on "The Uses and Abuses of Science Fiction" and we've hosted two panels showcasing "The Women Who Create Television." In the Spring, we are going to be hosting a day long celebration of Cyberpunk and Its Legacy in cooperation with The USC Visions and Voices Program, an event I have been developing with Howard Rodman and Scott Fischer.
A few weeks ago, we hosted a really fun evening focused on "The Future of Comics." The event started with my conversation with Scott McCloud, the author of Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, Making Comics, The Complete Zot, and the forthcoming graphic novel, The Sculptor. McCloud and I are old friends: I've hosted him many times at MIT, not to mention having frequent lunches at San Diego Comic-Con, with Scott and his family, but this was the first time I had brought him to USC. Given the theme, I used the exchange as a chance to drill down on some of the predictions or arguments he made about potential futures for his medium in Reinventing Comics, which came out in 2000. Some claimed he was a cyberutopian, which was at least partially true, but many (though not all) of the arguments he made there have at least partially been realized, including his strong belief that the growth of web comics might help to diversify who read and created comics and what kinds of comics would be produced.

Dan Carino, a comics journalist who has a USC affiliation, drew this picture conveying something of the tone of our exchange.

The second panel, organized and moderated by Geoff Long, the head technologist at the Lab, featured a range of contemporary comics creators from the Los Angeles area, sharing their own perspectives about the current state and future directions of comics as a medium. The speakers includedDan Burwen(Cognito Comics), Joe LeFavi (Quixotic Transmedia), Diana Williams(Lucasfilm) Hank Kanalz (DC Entertainment) and Patrick Chappatte (International New York Times).

This discussion generated much interest via Twitter when we announced it. We had booked all of the seats for the event in under 24 hours and many wrote to say they wished they could be there. Today, I am happy to be able to share with you videos of the two sessions. Please help me spread the word to anyone you know who is invested in comics.